Radio Talk Show Blitzing Progress Report: Midnight Rider.

Okay, some disclosure is first in order. For starters, I am a host on TruthNet Radio. Justin Breithaupt of mindblowingidea.com and I air every Saturday from 2 to 4 PM Central Standard Time. That being said, Mike Chambers if the founder and owner of the network I mentioned. He is also a radio talk show host on the Republic Broadcasting Network, and on that network, he has a show called The Midnight Rider (think Paul Revere).

First of all, kudos goes out to RBN for plugging VLC, which is an excellent media player (it even does DVDs!). That is a step in the right direction as far as I am concerned. Now for the call into The Midnight Rider. How did it go?

At first, pretty well, then the two hosts let some common misconceptions prevent them from at least discussing the possibility of other listeners migrating away from Microsoft. The comments about the command line or a DLL (NEWS FLASH: THERE ARE NO DLLS IN LINUX… THEY ARE DIFFERENT TYPES OF FILES, AND 99% OF THE TIME, AN EVERYDAY USER DOES NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THEM!) indicates that the two people on the air are five years behind. Not good. Here’s the question for those in the political underground:

Do you listen to Internet Radio?

Do you watch documentaries and video presentations on DVD, Youtube, Google Video, etc…?

Do you look for news tips for said radio talk show hosts bringing you a different point of view?

Do you hang out at user forums concerning these points of view?

Do you Instant Message?

Do you copy said DVD videos and hand them out to people?

Do you check your e-mail?

Do you write documents and would like to publish in PDF for free?

In a Linux based system, you can. Will you have to go through the command line? No. You will not. The only time stuff under the hood had to be fiddled with was when a friend of mine wanted to install an obscure printer device and wanted to try video editing (which is accelerating at a rapid pace). Other than that, Ubuntu 7.04 fulfilled his needs. I wasn’t talking about the hosts themselves, but the listeners. I should have clarified. It is also important to note that I am able to record audio using PCLinuxOS and Audacity.

It was not all bad news however. To his credit, Mike did say he would have on guests to talk about it in the future. Mike, if you’re reading this, I will follow up my friend. Count on it.

All in all, I have learned a few lessons thus far:

Do more research on any guests that the hosts are going to have on the program, so I don’t leave them out in the dark. I want to include them as well. I also need to better tailor what I have to say for them.

I got deadlined on Deadline Live, because my timing was off, period. I need to better choose a talk show host when I know I have more time. They hadn’t opened their phone lines yet. Whoops. Oh well.

As for those concerned about me not throwing this into the Tux Project ring, I should have said this: I won’t do it…. yet! If you have no clue where to start, and you are way too shy to do the radio blitz thing, perhaps there is a specialty that may come in handy for them. Teamwork is good, but it doesn’t mean going by organization. Too much organization results in bureaucracy, which slows everything down to a crawl. Not rushing is a good thing, but moving at the speed of molasses is detrimental as well, which is why working on multiple ends will be more effective. That way, the PR team up in Redmond won’t be able to easily counter what is being done now, especially if several hundreds of efforts on multiple ends in multiple ways and styles are being implemented and executed.

So keep an eye on this everyone. This is useful for everybody. Lessons can easily be learned, and I do welcome feedback. If you are a first time commenter, I have to approve your comment, which I will with no problem (unless it’s a spambot… lol), but after that, you have free reign to comment. Larry Cafiero showed some concern over what I was doing while liking the idea at the same time. I appreciate him for doing that and it is because of his concern that I am going to reconsider the whole thing on the Tux Project. I will submit my idea next week. I’m doing this hands on, because I know I’ll learn more. For those who don’t know who Larry is, it’s okay. Just visit opensourcereporter.net, his excellent website on FOSS news. You won’t be disappointed.

In closing, I will continue on, and I have had one person asking me how to sign up. You don’t have to sign up for anything. Just pick up the phone and dial your favorite host. Just e-mail your stories here: editor@thenixedreport.com. Drop your stories in my inbox if you want me to post them (I’ll give credit where it is due, but don’t remain anonymous… give me a screen name, a handle, something to name this post to…).